Palm’s (and now HP’s) webOS has finally clicked past 5,000 apps according to PreCentral. A quick look around shows us about 100,000 apps for Android, 250,000 for Apple and 10,000 for BlackBerry. With aging hardware, HP needs to get a new model out quickly to keep webOS moving forward on the app count.

PreCentral reaches 5,000 by included apps from various feeds and direct downloads. The number bumps to 7,000 if you include homebrew apps, themes and patches. Palm encouraged everyone to become a developer by providing a way to share homebrew apps that were not quite ready for primetime.

The common point made among fans of smaller app stores is, “we’re looking for quality, not quantity.” Take RIM for example, Alan Panezic, RIM’s VP or Platform Management had this to say, “We don’t need 200 fart apps in App World.” It’s an interesting defense, not without merit.